In Shadows

Helena Rhiannon Prince is just about fed up with city life. The constant cars outside her window at night, the blur of traffic everywhere she goes. For Helena, big cities really don't mean big dreams; but for her father, Roland Prince, the city is the only place he can bare to live. Since the death of Helena's mother, he's needed the constant whirring of other people around him to keep him sane - yet he's driving his daughter insane keeping her there. How can she survive in a school where the girls taunt her and the boys laugh? What will happen when she finally listens to the voice in her head telling her to run?

2. Actual Chapter 1

She was all in white, a silvery dress that hung loosely from her shoulders and draped her body in the most beautiful of ways. Long dark chestnut hair fell down her shoulders in soft waves and ringlets that swayed in the wind and danced on her bare back like fairies in glass slippers on glass. My eyes fell upon her entirety and my breath was deep. She was beautiful, and I was drawn to her in a way I could not describe. There was a part of me that wanted to follow her, part of me that resisted my better judgement. I stood from my bed and found my feet fully submerged in Earth. I couldn't move my legs no matter how hard I tried. My blood quickened in my veins, stirring as I saw her walk away. "Wait!" I cried, "Where are you going?" She did not answer me, she smiled faintly before pressing her palms into a large tree I hadn't even seen before. It was huge and as I looked to it's branches high above me I could see a faint outline of a room and a house with walls and ceilings. The Earth under me grew cold, and to my shock it fell apart right before my eyes and became the hardwood floors of my bedroom floor. When I looked up to ask her what was going on she was gone, taking the tree with her to my dreamland. The distant cars far below pass through the streets, honking at one another. The lights from the buildings of New York make me wince at the window, forcing me to pull the blinds down and shut the window. I feel so trapped in here, this small apartment in the centre of a city that never sleeps. It's too bad that I don't get to sleep either.

When I wake the next morning I am not cold, but as I glance cross my body, I see hair standing straight on my arms. I sit up slowly, confused. Whispers from my dreamland echo from one world into the next, and I see light shadows dancing across my eyes. Shadows of tiny figures with strange limbs in strange places dissappeared as women in long dresses and short hair dance. I peer closer, revealing these strange creatures to be dust floating across the room. "Dad" I yell, slumping off my bed and truding into the kitchen where he sits elegantly draped over the counter, coffee in one hand, newspaper in the other. "Yes, Pumpkin?" He furrows his brow and look up from his paper to watch me walk in. "My eyes are doing the thing again" "The thing? You're going to have to be more specific if you want to be a journalist." His eyes lightened and the creases that used to be laugh lines made their way back into his face. "I don't want to be a journalist" I smiled back at him, laughing. His journalism career has always been important to him, and we've been joking about my becoming one since we moved from Northern Quebec when I was a child.

"Are things blurry again?" I shake my head. "Uhm, can you see out of both eyes? Or only one?" "Both, that's not the problem this time." "Are things zooming in and out really quickly?" "Yes, that's it. But this time I woke up and dust was zoomed in. Nothing else. Just the dust." "Well then, Darling, it looks like there's only one thing to do now." He said, putting his hand on my hair and looking into my eyes intently.

"Let yourself go crazy." He threw his head back in laughter, enjoying his wit.